A colonoscopy screening for colorectal cancer should be covered by commercial health insurance, but a new study reports that some patients receive a “surprise” bill.
The study was published online Oct. 13 as a research letter in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
Nearly 1 in 8 commercially insured patients who had an elective colonoscopy between 2012 and 2017 received an out-of-network bill, resulting in hundreds of dollars more than the typical insurance payment.
The median surprise bill was $418 (range $152-$981).
The findings are “disconcerting” say the authors, “because Section 2713 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act eliminates consumer cost sharing for screening colonoscopy, and because a recent Federal Reserve study reported that 40% of Americans do not have $400 to cover unnecessary expenses.”
Most of these surprise costs were incurred from the use of out-of network anesthesiologists and pathologists, the authors note.
“Doctors need to be aware of these out-of-network bills so that patients know what to expect when they undergo these screening procedures,” said study author Karan R. Chhabra, MD, MSc, a resident in general surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts. “Ideally, they should do their colonoscopies at facilities where all providers participate in the same major insurance plans.”
“If gastroenterologists own their endoscopy facility, this is an obvious situation in which they should not be working with anesthesiologists or pathologists who are not in the same networks as them,” he told Medscape Medical News. “And as we point out in our paper, anesthesiology and pathology review are not necessary in every single case — endoscopists can perform their own sedation, and in certain settings, lesions can be discarded without pathological examination.”
But is it really that simple for physicians to make sure that all members of the team are in-network?
It’s not simple at all, and in fact it’s a rather difficult task, said Glenn Melnick, PhD, professor and chair in health care finance at USC and director of USC’s Center for Health Financing, Policy, and Management in Los Angeles.
“It would be really difficult for Dr Smith to know that Dr Jones is out of network, so it’s really hard to hold the doctors responsible,” Melnick told Medscape Medical News. “There are so many insurers and it may be difficult to know who is in-network and who isn’t.”
In this study, anesthesiologists and pathologists were a source of surprise bills, and they are behind the scenes, he pointed out. “The patient doesn’t select them directly and there is no opportunity to even find out who they are,” said Melnick.
Most patients have no idea that there may be other doctors involved with a colonoscopy, and Melnick highlighted his own recent experience. “I just had a colonoscopy and it never would have occurred to me. It never crossed my mind to even ask who is in network and who isn’t,” he said. “And I’m an expert on this.”
“The health plan could bear some responsibility here,” Melnick commented, although he added that patients need to be informed. Patients who are undergoing an elective procedure should be told that other doctors may be involved, and then to ask if these doctors are in the network. “If enough patients do this, maybe then the gastroenterologist will use people in network,” he commented.